Ladies and gentlemen, we have 21 days until the glorious Opening Day of the MLB season.
That of course means that Spring Training has been in full swing for a couple of weeks, which is honestly an underrated time of the sports calendar. In my opinion, baseball plays way too long of a season, but there’s something about Spring Training and knowing that America’s past time is right around the corner that’s comforting.
Especially since you get to see how your favorite team, or teams, seems to be shaping up. There’s nothing better than the time right before the season starts where all of your fandom dreams are still alive and well, only to come crashing back down to Earth at some point when the games actually start to count.
But that’s the beauty of Spring Training. The games sort of mean something, and the sport of baseball lures you back in like the steam off of a cartoon pie sitting on the windowsill. It also gives time for the announcers to knock the dust off and get back into their regular season shape, and that could not be better represented than with what happened during a game yesterday.
The Atlanta Braves were facing off against the Detroit Tigers and the Braves radio booth was giving a little insight into Tigers pitcher Shane Greene, who formerly suited up for Atlanta during the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
What did the broadcasters talk about? His pitching technique? His nasty curveball? Nope, they instead pulled a classic baseball move and filled the time in between his pitches by revealing that Shane Greene believes in aliens and doesn’t believe in dinosaur fossils.
While the game was going on, Spring Training announcer Darren O’Day said this:
“I remember the first night he sat in the bullpen down there, I just couldn’t believe that this guy is up there telling me how strongly he believes in aliens and thinks they’ve visited us multiple times…
I’m thinking ‘Okay, Aliens, no big deal.’ He leaned a little bit more to the conspiratorial side. Also believed that dinosaur fossils were a money making scheme by museums and governments.”
That right there is simply amazing, and baseball announcing in a nutshell. When you play as many games as they do, you’ve got to fill the time with some anecdotes every so often. Even conspiracy theory ones…
Never change baseball, never change.
